Taisuke Ōtsubo
Taisuke Ōtsubo (大坪 泰介 Ōtsubo Taisuke) was Shūtoku High's center and captain. Appearance Ōtsubo is known for being very tall and especially large. His hair is black and stands upwards. He has thick eyebrows and dark eyes. He wears the white, orange and black Shūtoku jersey with the number 4. Story Interhigh preliminaries He is seen leading his team to the match of the fourth round of the Interhigh preliminaries. During warmup, Midorima asks if he can play this time. Ōtsubo agrees, since their coach asked Ōtsubo to forgive Midorima's whims now and then. He warns Midorima not to pull that more than two times or he'll get mad. He concludes by saying that as long as Midorima scores, there's no problem.Kuroko no Basuke chapter 16, page 18 During the match itself, Ōtsubo is seen as the center pillar of his team, receiving passes from Takao and laying it in. He later strongly catches the rebound and dunks over two opponents. The players fall on the ground and Ōtsubo helps them up, while the Seirin players in the audience comment on how unstoppable he really is.Kuroko no Basuke chapter 17, page 6 He and his team win the match by a tremendous margin or 153 – 21. Pre-Winter Cup He is seen practicing for the Winter Cup with Shūtoku High.Kuroko no Basuke chapter 112, page 10 Winter Cup Ōtsubo is seen watching Seirin's 1st round against Tōō High along with his team and coach. In their own matches, they have won everything easily, round 1 to 3 and the quarter-finals. Semi-finals For the semi-finals of the Winter Cup, Shūtoku is set to play Rakuzan High. He leads his team to the court and jumps for the tip-off against Nebuya. Ōtsubo wins it and Takao gets the ball, Midorima eventually scores a three-pointer. At the end of the first quarter, Ōtsubo is beaten by Nebuya under the basket. When the second quarter starts and Miyaji passes Hayama and forces Nebuya outside, Ōtsubo gets the ball and he dunks it. But it proved to be difficult dealing with an Uncrowned King for him as Nebuya managed to get him out of his usual game. When Akashi starts to hold off Midorima, Rakuzan quickly gained the upperhand widening the gap to 16. However, Midorima refuels his spirit and started to make a play with Takao in order to counter Akashi's Emperor Eye. Ōtsubo also strengthens his resolve and retaliates against Nebuya, managing to block, outrebound, and even dunk over him. But when Akashi threatens to gouge out his own eyes as a morbidly sincere motivation to his team, Rakuzan decides to play more seriously, finally sealing their victory. Even though they lost, Ōtsubo still held his head high and tells his team to lineup. Skill Ōtsubo is very tall and muscular, so usually gains strong position in the post. A typical occurrence in games is that Ōtsubo grabs a rebound and executes a put back dunk. Other times, he is thrown the ball in the post, where he out-muscles his opponent to score a basket. It was show a few times that Ōtsubo could grab rebounds over multiple players.Kuroko no Basuke chapter 17, page 5 His rebounding prowess is strong enough to compete with Teppei Kiyoshi, and Eikichi Nebuya. Nebuya pointed out Ōtsubo's insane stamina as he is able to dunk even around the end of the match.. Trivia *On the first character poll, Ōtsubo ranked 25th, with 78 votes. *In a light novel story about Midorima's unlucky day, it is shown that Ōtsubo is quite skilled at knitting. *He is a fan of Mamirin from an idol girl group.Kuroko no Basuke chapter 177, page 7 References Navigation Category:Characters Category:Players Category:Shūtoku High Category:C Category:Captains